


Śikṣaka

by avani



Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: Backstory, Character Study, Gen, Mentors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-17 22:50:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,038
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21751006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avani/pseuds/avani
Summary: At the age of nine, the children of Kuntala are taken to see what remains of the palace-that-was. That is where Avantika discovers her treasure.
Relationships: Avantika & Devasena (Baahubali)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 14
Collections: Margazhi in Mahishmati 2019





	Śikṣaka

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GlyphArchive](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlyphArchive/gifts).



At the age of nine, the children of Kuntala are taken to see what remains of the palace-that-was. It is a solemn affair, more similar to a funeral procession than a foray into the unknown; the Chief leads them, silent and severe, and none of his young soldiers dare so much as whisper to one another. Avantika is among them, though by rights her birthday isn’t for another three days. But the Chief had stopped before her—her!—and ordered her to come along, and heart pounding, she obeyed. Vaishali held out a hand when no one was looking, and Avantika took it, daring greatly. There was something about being invited along on an adventure that made one feel invincible.

Her good mood does not last when they come upon the palace itself. For years, it has been the backdrop of a thousand fantasies, pure and pristine: this, though, is nothing but a pile of dirty marble ruins, rapidly covered by undergrowth. Avantika feels utterly betrayed.

“Look,” says the Chief; his voice is even hoarser than his norm. “Look around you. This is Mahishmati has done to our homeland. This is what they mean to do to Queen Devasena. This is what they will do to  _ you _ , if you do not take care! Carve this sight into your heart, as you will carve your rage into their bodies. It is the only way we can have our revenge.”

It is a thrilling speech, as are all the Chief’s. By the end of it, Avantika half-wishes someone would give her a sword, so that she might chop some offending soldiers of Mahishmati herself. No one does, however, and she must content herself with exploring the ruins around her, as do the other children around her.

This is how she discovers her treasure.

It is largely by luck: the sun slips from behind a cloud to glint on a piece of gold lodged within the rubble, and when Avantika peers closer and pulls it free, she finds an anklet, albeit one that is dirty and no longer able to be fastened. 

Avantika doesn’t care; it’s the most beautiful thing she has ever seen. The bells are clogged with mud so that they make no sound, but she imagines it must make a beautiful noise when it is clean. Someone special must have worn it once, here in the palace of the past, perhaps the Chief’s wife, or—or Queen Devasena herself!

This is a possibility too glorious to be ignored. Greedily Avantika hides the anklet on her body; if she is found with it, she will have to give it up and she cannot bear to lose it, not when it is Queen Devasena’s talisman, meant for the champion who will one day rescue her. Avantika is certain that it’s no coincidence that it was she who found it and no other.

“Fall back!” the Chief calls, and the other children turn to go. Avantika joins them, head spinning. What would Vaishali say, if only she might be told and trusted? But no; this is a secret too good and glorious to share. It is Avantika’s alone, and she is quite content to keep it so.

*

Over the next few days, the anklet makes the extent of its magic known. 

Avantika, not yet nine, has been struggling with a grown man’s bow for the last three weeks. Once in Kuntala, men and women had time and resources to spend upon child-sized weapons, meant to train; now they have only the tools of their survival, and those who with the strength to wield them. So the Chief decrees, and everyone knows better than to contradict him.

For weeks Avantika has been struggling even to pull the bowstring back—day by day she might improve a bit more, but still it has not been enough. Today is different; she can feel the instant she picks up the bow. Today she can compensate for the height of the bow, can hold the arrow steady for hours on end if necessary, today she can draw her weapon and hear the satisfying thud of her arrow meeting its target. Today, she thinks dazedly as she brushes her fingers against the anklet hidden by her waist, she can do  _ anything _ .

Birds sing her praises; the world shines; somewhere, Avantika is sure, Queen Devasena smiles to know her freedom is shortly at hand.

“Well done,” grunts the Chief, and Avantika beams.

*

“But of course you are the Chief’s favorite,” Vaishali grumbles. “Everyone knows that. It isn’t fair.”

She is sulking in the midst of their sleeping quarters, mostly because she can’t yet loose an arrow as Avantika can, even though she’s better at wrestling than any other child in all the camp. Avantika doesn’t blame her, though; it’s not Vaishali’s fault that she doesn’t have Queen Devasena’s anklet held close to her skin. It isn’t, but still Avantika doesn’t dare confide in her.

Instead she squats down beside Vaishali. “Of course I’m not,” she says. “The Chief doesn’t have favorites. He says so often enough.”

Vaishali snorts. “Even so. It would be something, wouldn’t it?”

She sounds so wistful that Avantika cannot resist wrapping her arms around her. “You’re  _ my _ favorite,” she tells Vaishali, more loudly than she intends, and when the echo of her voice bounces off the cavern walls, they laugh at it together.

*

The next day, the Chief reminds them all that friendships are a weakness, tenderness nothing but a tool Mahishmati uses to entrap them. That was lost, too, when Kuntala fell: a relic of a world in which their freedom, their parents, and their queen still flourished. They cannot indulge if they hope to live long enough to see their mission completed. He does not look at Avantika and Vaishali, but they feel the weight of his displeasure regardless. They edge further apart from each other, but it makes no difference.

That is how Avantika learns that there are some things that even the anklet’s magic cannot protect against. 

*

Eventually her secret is revealed. It happens so: Avantika is fencing, faster and more furious than ever before and she twists out of the way almost an instant too late. Her opponent’s sword lands safely a hand’s breadth to her side, but the anklet she keeps hidden at her side tumbles out onto the grass. She scrambles for it, and tucks it away, but nothing escapes the Chief’s all-seeing eye. He finds her that afternoon, dipping her fingers and feet into the river for the fish to nibble.

She expects him to lecture her on the dangers of luxury, as she has heard him do to others so many times before. But he only sits down beside her, looking closer to human than she has ever known him. This is how she knows that Vaishali is right, and she is indeed his favorite.

“Many women wore anklets, in those days,” he says. “There is no reason it should be my sister’s.”

He always knows what she is thinking, this man who is the closest thing to a father she has in this world.

“But it could be.” She frowns. “How would you know? How would any of us know?”

“She was my sister,” says the Chief. “I know her better than any other.”

Avantika does not contradict him, as much as she wants to. The Chief might have the advantage of actual memories, but she and Queen Devasena are linked by destiny. She curls up and meets his gaze. “I won’t give it up.”

The Chief grunts. “All the rest think of Devasena and see only a dream: but you were different, I believed. To you, she lives and breathes still. She would be disappointed to think herself nothing but a child’s superstition, when she never put much faith in foolish fancies herself.”

He always know to bend her to his will, this man who is the closest thing to a father she has in this world.

“She would take much delight,” he says, “in a daughter such as you. As I would have, once.”

The Chief gets up to go, leaving Avantika behind. She knows she is expected to throw the anklet into the lake, letting it sink beneath the waves to be irrevocably lost. Instead she buries it beneath one of the smooth stones she sits upon, because despite it all there is a spark in Avantika that will not submit to anyone. 

She does her best to forget it exists: she does not quite succeed.

*

Fifteen years later, when all Avantika’s dreams come true, the first words Queen Devasena speaks to her are: “Might I have some water?”

Avantika stares, caught between delight at being acknowledged and distress that her queen must need to beg a simple necessity rather than demand it. She stares so long, in fact, that Queen Devasena averts her eyes, most likely assuming her a halfwit.

Vaishali saves her, as always. She says: “Of course, Your Majesty,” and taps Avantika on the shoulder until she rouses. They fetch the pitcher together, and help the Queen wipe her body free of decades of dust, her face free of dried tears. There’s even enough left behind that Devasena might drink: after, she smiles up at them and rasps, “I thank you both.” When she watches her son and listens to Kattappa spin his tale, Queens Devasena sits both Avantika and Vaishali at her side. Avantika’s fingers are laced through her heroine’s, and she can feel the shudder of the Queen’s breaths beside her. 

If Avantika dies before the week is out, she will die happy. 

The night before the charge on Mahishmati, Avantika does not spend her time like so many others, lost in prayer or planning or passion. Instead she squats on the riverbank, digging under one half-remembered boulder after another, until she unearths what she seeks.

When she goes into battle, she does so with Queen Devasena’s anklet tucked into her belt.

*

Even the most ardent worship, however, must someday wane, and this is how Avantika finds this to be true: the day comes when she realizes victory is won, the rightful king restored, and still Queen Devasena lingers in Mahishmati. 

Avantika cannot fathom why this should be so. To be fair, a mother is due time with a long lost son, but the ruins of Kuntala wait for their Queen. It might have been a child’s dream to think all would be set right with Queen Devasena’s return, and he Avantika cannot bear to see it destroyed.

Devasena, when she hears this, only laughs.

“To think I believed they told tales in Kuntala not to follow the example of careless Devasena and leave your home behind!” Before Avantika can assure her that the reality is entirely the opposite, she continues. “But whether I am a paragon or a pitiable fool, the fact remains that it is no longer my place to rebuild what was ruined for my sake.”

Queen Devasena was many things, but never a coward. Avantika flinches. 

“For better or worse, I left Kuntala behind,” Queen Devasena says, gently, “but you need not. Kuntala deserves to be made in the shape of your dreams, you young firebrands who fought for its freedom, rather than my in distinct memories. This is your place, not mine—you have won it fairly.”

“But—“ says Avantika, and Queen Devasena silences her with a single raised finger.

“I’ve noticed that you still wear that old anklet I believed I had left behind and lost,” Devasena says—and she is somehow merely Devasena, neither Queen nor goddess. She will never be anything more, and a part of Avantika aches to realize it.“It looks well on you, my dear, but one day you must make it so that it’s remembered as your own, rather than a castoff. What would the world say, if they saw a Queen wearing such shabby things?”

“A Queen?” Avantika repeats, taken aback.

“Oh yes. One way or another, I imagine. But what truly matters is that you make it worthwhile.”

Avantika bites her lip and considers this. “I can try,” she offers at last. 

“I ask no more,” says Devasena, and takes her hand.

**Author's Note:**

> *śikṣaka- (Sanskrit) mentor.  
> * I will say, [in this gif](https://thebookmarkedone.tumblr.com/post/160879364234/the-women-of-baahubali) Avantika seems to have something hanging from her belt-- more likely just part of her knife or something of the sort, but naturally you guys needed the prolonged Avani headcanon/backstory for an insignificant detail!  
> * I hope you enjoy this :) Happy MiM!


End file.
